Darkness. When Celia opened her eyes, that was all she could see. She thought maybe that she had simply forgotten to open her eyes, but even blinking did not cure the surrounds of their ink. "Verbena?" Her voice longingly echoed back, "Verbena?" To her in the seemingly empty expanse. Celia could feel that the dragon was close, yet the black veil prohibited the human from seeing the dragonet.

'Celia?' Verbena's worried tone entered Celia's panicked mind, 'Celia, what's wrong? What is it?" 

Celia froze as something nearby moved with small splashing footsteps. 'What was that?' Celia breathed and switched to using the mind link over her actual voice in fear of attracting the creature to her location. 'I think there's something in here,' she emitted a whimper, 'maybe the monster found us and is here to kill us.' Her mind raced with fear as her senses tried to make sense of the back expanse around her.

'I'll protect you,' Verbena replied in a determined tone as a soft warning growl echoed through the cave, 'where's the monster?'

Ceia struggled to contain her breath so it could not be used to find her. 'I have no idea,' she mentally whimpered, 'but I can't see it.'

'I'll try to breathe some fire again,' Verbena said, but no light appeared. Instead, there was a soft hiss-like sound. 'Let me try again. I did it earlier, so I can do it now,' Verbena spoke again in a determined tone. After a deep, breathy inhalation, a blast of illuminating flame briefly burst into the room.

Though the flame did not last long, it was enough for Celia to notice that she and Verbena were the only two living creatures in the crevice. Luckily for the dragon and rider duo, the brief flame relit the small bottle of ryume so they once again had a constant source of light.

Celia looked down to the flame, "I guess the wick got wet while we were sleeping. Your wet feathers probably dripped on it, and then what I heard was just you moving in the darkness. I can't believe that I succumbed to paranoia," She laughed nervously, "I guess I'm so used to being attacked while out here, I expect it now." She sighed, "I do miss the safety of home."

Celia thought back to the darkness, then noted how uncomfortable she had felt in the pure darkness. If there had even been a tiny speck of light, even Celia's human eyes would have been able to use it to see in the empty expanse. The human had grown up in a tunnel system with light everywhere, and even the sky had the stars. Even on the cloudiest nights, Celia could still manage to see thanks to the light coming from the celestial objects behind the cloudy obstruction.

However, the dead, opaque inky darkness she had just experienced felt more like suffocating hopelessness than the living naturalness of the cave systems she had lived in. It seemed as if no life could live in the dark landscape.

'I'm sorry that I dripped on the candle,' Verbena whimpered in guilt, 'and I'm sorry for scaring you.'

Celia stroked Verbena's still-damp muzzle, "Don't worry about it," she gently smiled in assurance, "it was an accident. You did not mean it. I just hope that I never lose sight of light again. That was terrifying." She gently reached down and picked up the lamp. "We should probably get going again."

Verbena nodded, then stood up as well. 'Since we can't go get this Ray of Light right now, where should we begin our search?'

Celia paused, then set the lamp down on a semi-dry rock ledge and pulled out the old map she had taken with her when she started on this journey. She unfolded it and placed it on the dry ground the human had previously been asleep. After a moment to read the map, she pointed to Rien. "Here is where we started," she paused, then took a bit of muddy grime on her finger and circled the town, "and here," she traced a circle around where she thought the town with the light sat, "is where the second ray is."

'That leaves a lot of empty space to search, but there's only two left so I know we can do it!' Verbena bounded around the cavern in her excitement. 'We have found half of them! The other half to go!'

Celia smiled a bit to her dragon and nodded, then looked back to the paper before her. After she paused a moment to mentally estimate their general location, she pointed to a general area on the map, "We have an entire landscaper to search, but we should start with the southwest part of this map since we are already in the area.

"And once we are done here," Celia moved her hand to the northern expanse of land, "we can search up here. Maybe if we travel far enough north we can avoid the monster and go back to the eastern half of the map and return home." She smiled a bit to her dragon as positive feelings began to well up inside of her, "maybe, just maybe," a smile spread across her face, "we are not as far hopeless or lost as I thought." The human allowed a smile to spread across her face.

Verbena nodded in agreement, 'OKAY!' The dragonet cheered, then looked back towards the exit. 'Should we go now then?' She leaned down to offer the human girl aid in climbing to her normal perch.

After the map was returned to the safety of Verbena's saddlebags, Celia nodded as she accepted the offer and scrambled onto the dragonet's back. Once she had retrieved the lamp, the human looked to Verbena, "let's go find the other rays of light." As the dragonet moved, her rider cradled the lamp in one arm and held on to the harness with her other so the pair could still have a source of light.

The pair walked by brown and grey cave walls as they exited the cave system that had been their shelter. When they emerged, the stars greeted them with their twinkling greeting. The moon was gone, and a golden glow on the horizon marked the location of the unreachable second ray of sunlight.

Celia glanced at the light on the horizon, "we'll come back," she promised herself in a whisper, then looked to Verbena with a small hopeful smile on her face, "let's go, we have a lot of lands to search."

Verbena nodded and spread her wings, which were already beginning to whiten with a layer of frost. 'Sunlight, here we come!' With that joyous exclamation, the dragonet launched into the air. After a few extra wingbeats to increase her altitude, the dragonet and her rider began to head southwest.

Celia smiled as she looked out to the mountains seemed to endlessly stretch in front of them in rising and falling white dunes. The calm landscape felt as a peaceful invitation to their search for the next ray of light. "Sunlight, here we come," she agreed to the dragon's cheer.

Celia slowly inhaled, then exhaled a bit of the cold, peaceful night air through her face mask. The amulet tucked under her clothes kept her warm, so she did not have to worry about frostbite or freezing to death anymore. She closed her eyes and felt the air pass around her. Though she normally did not mind the constraints of caves, the human was glad to once again feel freedom from the constraints of the lightless abyss the pair had just escaped from.

The moon above gracefully blessed the landscape below with its presence, the light reflecting off of the undisturbed top layer of snow.

After a few moments of flying, Verbena glanced down and noticed a set of peculiar tracks in the deep snow near one of the mountain ridges. 'What are those?' She paused, then glanced back to Celia, 'do you think we should investigate? Those tracks could either mean food, or another dragon, but I can't tell from here. I will have to take us closer in order to find out.'

Celia paused and looked over Verbena's shoulder to see the ground beneath them. Something rather large had recently walked through the snow, though the tracks were not all that deep. "Whatever it was, it left rather shallow tracks, so it probably was not human," Celia hummed, then looked forward to Verbena's head. "We can go down there if you would like to."

'I'll do a fly by first, then if it's safe we can investigate closer.' Verbena nodded in agreement, then tilted her wings downward to descend towards the prints. When she stopped descending, her wingtips barely cleared the landscape and each downstroke stirred a tiny flurry of glittery dust.

From Celia's perspective, the line of stirred snow was consistent and showed no signs of limping. Her vision only allowed her to see the basic shapes, and if there were any trace scents, her human nose could not detect them. However, Verbena's superior senses noticed far more than Celia's human vision.

I think we should land for a moment,' the dragonet said, then landed in the snow near the tracks without waiting for her rider's approval. Thankfully, Celia was already prepared for the landing and Verbena's landings had improved, so neither one of was hurt or badly jostled by the action.

After she landed, Verbena paused and put her nose near the tracks in the snow to sniff the area for scents. 'These prints came from a young male dragon that passed through here not too long ago,' she paused and studied the scattered snow a bit more, 'and based on the other set of tracks, I think he was chasing something, but I do not recognize the scent of the creature. It's unfamiliar to me.'

Celia gazed at the prints in confusion, "You can tell that just based on scent?" When the dragonet nodded, Celia mused over her thoughts before she continued, "It is odd that this dragon was running through the snow instead of flying after his prey. I wonder why."

Verbena did not have an answer as she lifted her head, 'let's follow the tracks, maybe they'll lead us to someone friendly for once.' With her proclamation, she leaped back into the sky to follow the trail from the air.

The tracks continued for a few more feet, then ended into a space reminiscent of a scuttle. 'He caught whatever he was chasing,' she began to glide in a circle around the area to study both the scuffle and the snow surrounding the space. 'He went this way,' she straightened her path and flapped her wings to increase her speed, but stayed close to ground so she could continue to closely study the snow in case there were more clues left behind in the white powder.

"I really hope he's friendly," Celia breathed, "and not just another being that wants to attack us. I have gotten tired of being attacked every time we turn around. Someone friendly would be nice for once." 

Verbena nodded in agreement as she continued to track the new dragon's whereabouts. After a moment of continually flying, she tensed and her ears twitched and turned as if she heard something. Before she could look above her and convey what she had detected to her rider, something slammed into their sides and knocked them out of the air. Luckily, Verbena and Celia did not have far to fall and neither one of them were harmed in the exchange.

When Celia recovered from being thrown into the snow, the human looked up to see another dragon in the air ominously looming over her and Verbena and poised to attack them as it neared the duo.

Author Notes:

Sorry about not posting this at the normal time, but I was distracted by packing for and then taking a long drive.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter!